


Glow

by maximumdanger



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Introspection, Mutual Pining, POV Caleb Widogast, POV Third Person Limited, Pining, Post-Battle, Pre-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28719708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximumdanger/pseuds/maximumdanger
Summary: Caleb and Nott share a room, and a bed, and some thoughts...
Relationships: Frumpkin & Nott | Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast, Nott | Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 14
Kudos: 42





	Glow

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! No major warnings for this one, but it does have some Caleb backstory elements, so if you're not caught up on that, this may not be the one for you! Also, I have the German skills equivalent of a 3 year old, so I apologize if any Zemnian is misspelled or grammatically incorrect. Feel free to correct me.
> 
> Also, special thank you to lynxladybuglover for previewing this for me. You're the best!
> 
> A/N: Sorry I have not been able to upload as much as I like this past month! My sister gave me COVID when I saw her this Christmas (I know, worst gift ever) so I have had to deal with my brain and body feeling like applesauce. Good news is I have almost fully recovered, but I am dealing with some longer term symptoms and I do not know how soon they will go away, or if they ever will. We'll see! But I hope you enjoy this work, it has been sitting in my drafts for quite some time and has undergone a lot of work and transformation. I love these two so much, and would write mountains of work on them if I had the time.
> 
> I encourage you to leave a comment on what you enjoyed or what I can improve on, and as always, enjoy! :-)

Caleb watched Nott hurry herself into their room before following her in, gently shutting the door on its squeaking hinges and locking it behind him. He checked the lock, once, twice, just in case. Though it was fully dark, he immediately went over to the small window and drew the curtains shut (not before he checked that the window's latch stayed in place, double checked, just to be sure). He was then satisfied, he told himself (his mind itched at him to check them both a third time), and took in a deep breath while he surveyed the place.

"Well, _mein Freund,_ " he said, turning back to Nott, "Today was…" he trailed off as he fiddled with the oil lamp on the dressing table.

Nott hopped up onto the bed with a creak, pulling off her porcelain mask. "We've seen better days," she muttered.

" _Ja_ ," Caleb replied, trying not to shudder as he recalled the sting of sharp steel against his skin in the mid-morning sun. Strange time to get ambushed, he'd thought. "But tomorrow is another day, and I think we made enough to shop around a bit. Maybe we look around for some trinkets in the morning." He mustered a tight-lipped smile.

Nott smiled with a bit more heart than him and nodded. "Oh, yes! We could do _Mother's Love_ again!"

"Maybe we lay off the, ehm, schemes for a bit. You know, we are new in town, we don't want to draw any attention too quickly."

Her long ears flicked downwards. Despite looking a bit disappointed, she nodded again. "Yes, I guess that's fair. Maybe we could look around for a bathhouse for you instead, then?" Caleb couldn't mistake the cheeky grin creeping across her face.

He let out a soft chuckle and lowered into a seat near the room's little writing table. " _Ja_ , I am a bit filthy past my usual comfort. If we don't find one, we can ask the inn staff if they have a bucket we can borrow."

She giggled, showing her sharpened teeth. He couldn't help his warm feeling creeping up at that. These days, she always made him feel like that. Right now, though, he felt a bit too warm.

He shrugged out of his coat, letting it rest on the back of the chair. He tried to keep the grime concentrated to the outside of his apparel, but he could now feel his senses flaring at the layers of sweat and dirt built up on his skin. He dreaded to think how he would fare in his thick wool and fur and cotton clothes in the summer months. It was a good enough social shield, but... hm. He shuddered, closed his eyes, and decided to divert his attention back to his internal clock.

It had been 15 minutes and 33 seconds since they'd entered the inn. It had been 47 minutes and 43 seconds since they'd arrived in town. It had been 7 hours, 53 minutes, and 62 seconds since they'd been ambushed on the road and come out victorious. They had the blood stains on their shirts and full coin purses to prove it.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and opened his eyes to see Nott fiddling with something on the bed. Her porcelain mask lay beside her, and the area on her cheek where a crossbow bolt had grazed her earlier was now exposed, though layers of her bandages were stuck around it, tacky with half-dried blood. The weapon responsible was now laid in her lap, with her clawed hands examining its taut string and trigger. It was newer, cleaner than her old crossbow. She lifted the empty weapon, aiming it towards Caleb.

" _Bang!"_

"You're going to be very dangerous with that one. _"_ Her grin spread wider, exposing the full row of jagged teeth. Caleb gave a little smile in return.

They were both better from a distance. It was safer that way. She was fierce and scrappy, and could climb somebody like a feral animal if she needed to, but they were both less hearty than your average warrior. Especially Caleb. He had both scars and fresh wounds to show for it.

The first time that Nott patched up his wounds after a run-in had surprised him a bit. There was something so soft about her touch that contrasted her scrappy nature. It reminded him a bit of his old friends, the way they cared for one another after a particularly rough lesson with Ikithon. That softness with one another was once his only solace. In a way, that softness with Nott… well, they were each other's solace in a hard world now. That could mean about a million things now, couldn't it?

"Caleb," Nott's voice called. "Are you doing that 'thinking too much' thing again?"

He didn't look up at her, but forced a tight-lipped grin. He pushed those thoughts down, tapping his foot against the floor rapidly. "I am always thinking too much, you know."

"Well, think about leaving some of the thinking to me, then." He heard a click, presumably from her new crossbow. "We're a team, right? You take half of my work, and I take half of yours."

Caleb almost laughed. He wrenched his gaze from the floor up to the wall behind Nott. _Oh, meine Götter._ That keen mind was a blessing and a curse. Once he began to think about something, it was very, very hard to stop thinking of it. There were always numbers and spells and memories and feelings. Always these things. He pulled his mind away from the feelings, both physical and mental, and focused it back to Nott. 

But Nott, she was such an enigma. She'd become so many things to him in such a short period of time. It was impossible to not overthink her. That smile in the soft glow of the oil lamp. It's so familiar, yet so novel, like reading an old fairytale from a time when he still believed in such things.

All the things he could say to her. All the things he wanted to say.

"Let me patch you up," he said instead, getting up and moving to sit next to her on the single bed. "We wouldn't want to leave that scrape alone. _"_

She nodded silently, and let Caleb get to work, placing the crossbow down on the night table. He pulled her hood down, and gently gathered her shaggy black hair up and away from her face with a small length of silver thread. He went to retrieve some gauze, a rag, and a flask from his pack, and paused, looking back at Nott. She had such beautiful golden eyes. The glow of the lamplight danced in them like a wildfire. 

"Do you want to hold my cat?" he asked. "I know you do not like this part."

Nott scoffed, in the _I'm tougher than I look_ kind of way, but still nodded after a moment.

He smiled tenderly, summoning his cat into her lap. 

_Make biscuits._

He meowed, almost like a groan, still a bit hesitant around Nott, but obliged.

Caleb poured a bit of alcohol onto the rag, and said, "Okay, deep breaths."

Nott grit her teeth, visibly restraining herself from clawing into Frumpkin. She tried her very best not to hiss as he gently dabbed at the wound, clearing away the dried blood and dirt.

"Do we really have to do this part?" she forced out from between her gritted teeth.

"Yes. There is good news: you don't need to be stitched," Caleb said, "But we should keep an eye on it." Gingerly, he began to replace the bandages on her face, securing a little pad of gauze in place over the damaged skin. He tried to make soft work of it. Her skin may have been tough and scarred over, but there was no reason to add to the scars.

He gave a small peck on her cheek after he'd finished. She caught his hand in turn as he drew himself away, lips tight over jagged teeth. He couldn't deny that his heart fluttered in his chest.

_You are like a school boy, Widogast._

"Let's get some rest, _ja?"_

_"Ja,"_ Nott echoed.

There was a moment of shuffling of clothes, and lowering the lamplight, and crawling into bed together. It was warm enough in the inn that perhaps they didn't need to cuddle so close, but they were so used to it on the road that it felt wrong not to. And so, under the covers they both went, with Nott curled up in the crook of Caleb's angular body, her own bony spine pressing against his ribs, and Frumpkin at their feet. They fit together like a jagged puzzle, the weight and pressure of one another like a thick blanket. While neither of them had particularly comfortable bodies, in a manner of speaking, it was familiar, and in that, there was comfort.

He couldn't help but project his nights at the academy, cuddled close to his former friends, onto her. It was once them against the world, and now it was just Caleb and Nott against the world. His old friends were probably happier without him. Maybe he would be happier without them. He still missed them, he couldn't deny that. Maybe he would never stop missing them. Often he wondered if there was somebody that Nott missed as well, if anybody was missing her.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Caleb,” Nott mumbled, interrupting his thoughts. Caleb’s heart skipped a beat. He dreaded hearing those words, but it was far more suspicious to deny her. He ignored the growing pit of anxiety in his gut, and moved to rest an arm across her body in a way he hoped was comforting.

He cleared his throat. “Well, ehm, ask me whatever you’d like. I am an open book.” He groaned internally. _What a bold-faced lie, Widogast,_ he scolded himself. _You’re not fooling her with that._

Nott either didn’t pick up on his insincerity or didn’t care, because she went right on ahead. “I wanted to ask about… why you’ve stayed with me for so long. Well, I mean, I understand the whole, you know, ‘we’re stronger as a team, blah blah blah, we stick together’ _schtick_ I said a few minutes ago, but I’m, you know, a goblin. I'm a bit scary. I'm... I can't blend in the way you do."

_Oh,_ Scheisse _. How do I even begin to answer that?_

It took a minute, but he swallowed, took a deep breath, and spoke. "You know, I, ehm, think much the same way you do. I mean, you have seen me," he huffed out a laugh, "I am not strong at all, and well… I only recently picked up magic again. I am not exactly star pupil. I'm not intimidating. I'm not very handsome, either, not even in a way that is… useful. I have very little to bring to the table." He paused, collecting his racing thoughts. "I think we are each others' better halves, so to speak."

_There is so much that you don't know about me._

After a moment, Nott laughed. There was a heaviness in it, but it still filled the room like a chiming of bells.

"We're a mess, Widogast."

"That we are, Miss 'the Brave.'"

"But I wouldn't want it any other way."

There was a beat of silence as Caleb willed himself to speak.

"I will be honest with you," he said softly, his heart pounding in his ears, "I did not think we would stay together after you helped me break out. I'd gotten so used to travelling alone, I assumed it would just stay that way." He took another breath, gathering his wits and his nerves. "I am… glad you stayed with me. I care for you very deeply. I do not know if I could have gotten this far without you." 

That much was genuine, at least.

Nott twisted herself around to face Caleb, her eyes and the silver thread catching the low light of the oil lamp. Her expression was hard to read, almost wistful, and Caleb hoped that she could not read his, either. She propped herself up on her elbow, and Caleb mirrored her, maintaining eye contact, hard as it was with her piercing gaze.

"You've taken great care of me, Caleb," she whispered, reaching her other hand up to his cheek. The touch felt like fireworks against his skin as her fingers grazed the stubble on his jaw.

"I can say the same for you." He was sure his face had betrayed him at this point, but it didn't matter much, because Nott was smiling, and her eyes were drawing down to his lips, and she was pushing herself forward, and his eyes were slipping closed.

It was nice. A bit muddled by bandages and scruff and sharp teeth, but it was nice. Her arm wrapped around his shoulder, and his hand came up to her face, and there was that warmth in his chest again that replaced his nervousness. They'd kissed before, but never had it been like this. It never meant anything, it was always _for_ something, but this… it was for them. He actually felt it. There was a moment where she deepened the kiss, pulled him closer, and Caleb felt as if he could cry, because for the first time in ages, a kiss felt like-

And then it was over. She pulled back, and Caleb's eyes fluttered open to a flustered Nott.

"Sorry," she quickly said, breathless, "I should've asked… was I reading what you said wrong there, or…?" she trailed off, hand still on his shoulder.

"No, no!" Caleb hurried, "I… would not have had the courage to do that myself. That is why they call you The Brave, I suppose."

Nott grinned again, and Caleb couldn't help but grin back.

"You're a catch, Caleb Widogast. Don't let anyone make you feel otherwise," she said. "Now, can I kiss you again?"

\--

The curtains, as it turns out, didn't block out much of the light. When the first beams of the early morning sun hit Caleb's face, he stirred awake, and found Nott still pressed against him, asleep with her long black hair splaying onto his shoulder like a wing. He summoned Frumpkin to lay on his chest, and ran his free hand through the cat's soft fur as he gazed up at the cracked plaster ceiling. The lamp had long since burned out, and the noise of the day hadn't picked up quite yet. It was just them, breathing in the orange morning haze.

Caleb hadn't used the word in a while, but in that moment, things felt perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed :-).


End file.
